Althouse

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• The fledgling robin.
• Prairie flower...
• "While many of the creators of the internet bemoan how low their creature has fallen, their anger is misdirected."
• "He’s the most seductive character that we’ve seen in American politics in our lifetime. He just has this unbelievably resilient and seductive personality."
• The sexual interplay of marriage is so complicated these days.
• How a black man could be white in the American South in the 1940s.
• "It is said that every city, every country, has its smell."
• "'The Ideal Head': Bizarre Racial Teachings From a 1906 Textbook."
• Are you orthorexic?

The fledgling robin. Posted: 20 Jul 2014 11:14 AM PDT I was able to get close to this little bird for a long time to get these pictures. He didn't seem to know the usual flying away routine.

Prairie flower... Posted: 20 Jul 2014 07:27 AM PDT ... and a bee:

"While many of the creators of the internet bemoan how low their creature has fallen, their anger is misdirected." Posted: 20 Jul 2014 06:28 AM PDT "The fault is not with that amorphous entity but, first of all, with the absence of robust technology policy on the left – a policy that can counter the pro-innovation, pro-disruption, pro-privatisation agenda of Silicon Valley." In its absence, all these emerging political communities will operate with their wings clipped. Whether the next Occupy Wall Street would be able to occupy anything in a truly smart city remains to be seen: most likely, they would be out-censored and out-droned.... Algorithmic regulation, whatever its immediate benefits, will give us a political regime where technology corporations and government bureaucrats call all the shots.

"He’s the most seductive character that we’ve seen in American politics in our lifetime. He just has this unbelievably resilient and seductive personality." Posted: 20 Jul 2014 06:47 AM PDT Said David Axelrod... about Bill Clinton, to Maureen Dowd, who's examining why Bill Clinton is so terribly popular these days. Dowd also has this strange pairing of paragraphs: A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Annenberg center poll showed that Clinton was, by a long shot, the most admired president of the last quarter-century. A new YouGov poll finds that among the last eight elected presidents, Clinton is regarded as the most intelligent and W. the least. (Clinton and W. both should have been more aggressive in catching Osama. But certainly, if Clinton had been president post-9/11, there would have been no phony invasion of Iraq, and Katrina would have elicited more empathy.) To that parenthetical, I say: 1. What phony military invasions would Clinton have chosen as appropriate after 9/11?  (I've listed Clinton's actual military ventures below the jump.) 2. Would he bite his lip? Would he wipe away a tear? From Wikipedia's timeline of U.S. military operations: 1992–95 – Somalia: Operation Restore Hope, Somali Civil War: On December 10, 1992, President Bush reported that he had deployed U.S. armed forces to Somalia in response to a humanitarian crisis and a UN Security Council Resolution in support for UNITAF. The operation came to an end on May 4, 1993. U.S. forces continued to participate in the successor United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM II).(See also Battle of Mogadishu)[RL30172] 1993–95 – Bosnia: Operation Deny Flight, On April 12, 1993, in response to a United Nations Security Council passage of Resolution 816, U.S. and NATO enforced the no-fly zone over the Bosnian airspace, prohibited all unauthorized flights and allowed to "take all necessary measures to ensure compliance with [the no-fly zone restrictions]." 1993 – Macedonia: On July 9, 1993, President Clinton reported the deployment of 350 U.S. soldiers to the Republic of Macedonia to participate in the UN Protection Force to help maintain stability in the area of former Yugoslavia.[RL30172] 1994 – Bosnia: Banja Luka incident, NATO become involved in the first combat situation when NATO U.S. Air Force F-16 jets shot down four of the six Bosnian Serb J-21 Jastreb single-seat light attack jets for violating UN-mandated no-fly zone. 1994–95 – Haiti: Operation Uphold Democracy, U.S. ships had begun embargo against Haiti. Up to 20,000 U.S. military troops were later deployed to Haiti to restore democratically-elected Haiti President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from a military regime which came into power in 1991 after a major coup.[RL30172] 1994 – Macedonia: On April 19, 1994, President Clinton reported that the U.S. contingent in Macedonia had been increased by a reinforced company of 200 personnel.[RL30172] 1995 – Bosnia: Operation Deliberate Force, On August 30, 1995, U.S. and NATO aircraft began a major bombing campaign of Bosnian Serb Army in response to a Bosnian Serb mortar attack on a Sarajevo market that killed 37 people on August 28, 1995. This operation lasted until September 20, 1995. The air campaign along with a combined allied ground force of Muslim and Croatian Army against Serb positions led to a Dayton Agreement in December 1995 with the signing of warring factions of the war. As part of Operation Joint Endeavor, U.S. and NATO dispatched the Implementation Force (IFOR) peacekeepers to Bosnia to uphold the Dayton agreement.[RL30172] 1996 – Liberia: Operation Assured Response, On April 11, 1996, President Clinton reported that on April 9, 1996 due to the :"deterioration of the security situation and the resulting threat to American citizens" in Liberia he had ordered U.S. military forces to evacuate from that country "private U.S. citizens and certain third-country nationals who had taken refuge in the U.S. Embassy compound...."[RL30172] 1996 – Central African Republic, Operation Quick Response: On May 23, 1996, President Clinton reported the deployment of U.S. military personnel to Bangui, Central African Republic, to conduct the evacuation from that country of "private U.S. citizens and certain U.S. government employees", and to provide "enhanced security for the American Embassy in Bangui."[RL30172] United States Marine Corps elements of Joint Task Force Assured Response, responding in nearby Liberia, provided security to the embassy and evacuated 448 people, including between 190 and 208 Americans. The last Marines left Bangui on June 22. 1996 – Kuwait: Operation Desert Strike, American Air Strikes in the north to protect the Kurdish population against the Iraqi Army attacks. U.S. deploys 5,000 soldiers from the 1ST Cavalry Division at Ft Hood Texas in response to Iraqi attacks on the Kurdish people.[citation needed] 1996 – Bosnia: Operation Joint Guard, On December 21, 1996, U.S. and NATO established the SFOR peacekeepers to replace the IFOR in enforcing the peace under the Dayton agreement. 1997 – Albania: Operation Silver Wake, On March 13, 1997, U.S. military forces were used to evacuate certain U.S. government employees and private U.S. citizens from Tirana, Albania.[RL30172] 1997 – Congo and Gabon: On March 27, 1997, President Clinton reported on March 25, 1997, a standby evacuation force of U.S. military personnel had been deployed to Congo and Gabon to provide enhanced security and to be available for any necessary evacuation operation.[RL30172] 1997 – Sierra Leone: On May 29 and May 30, 1997, U.S. military personnel were deployed to Freetown, Sierra Leone, to prepare for and undertake the evacuation of certain U.S. government employees and private U.S. citizens.[RL30172] 1997 – Cambodia: On July 11, 1997, In an effort to ensure the security of American citizens in Cambodia during a period of domestic conflict there, a Task Force of about 550 U.S. military personnel were deployed at Utapao Air Base in Thailand for possible evacuations. [RL30172] 1998 – Iraq: Operation Desert Fox, U.S. and British forces conduct a major four-day bombing campaign from December 16–19, 1998 on Iraqi targets.[RL30172] 1998 – Guinea-Bissau: Operation Shepherd Venture, On June 10, 1998, in response to an army mutiny in Guinea-Bissau endangering the U.S. Embassy, President Clinton deployed a standby evacuation force of U.S. military personnel to Dakar, Senegal, to evacuate from the city of Bissau.[RL30172] 1998–99 – Kenya and Tanzania: U.S. military personnel were deployed to Nairobi, Kenya, to coordinate the medical and disaster assistance related to the bombing of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.[RL30172] 1998 – Afghanistan and Sudan: Operation Infinite Reach, On August 20, President Clinton ordered a cruise missile attack against two suspected terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and a suspected chemical factory in Sudan.[RL30172] 1998 – Liberia: On September 27, 1998, America deployed a stand-by response and evacuation force of 30 U.S. military personnel to increase the security force at the U.S. Embassy in Monrovia. [1] [RL30172] 1999–2001 – East Timor: Limited number of U.S. military forces deployed with the United Nations-mandated International Force for East Timor restore peace to East Timor.[RL30172] 1999 – Serbia: Operation Allied Force: U.S. and NATO aircraft began a major bombing of Serbia and Serb positions in Kosovo on March 24, 1999, during the Kosovo War due to the refusal by Serbian President Slobodan Milošević to end repression against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. This operation ended in June 10, 1999, when Milošević agreed to pull out his troops out of Kosovo. In response to the situation in Kosovo, NATO dispatched the KFOR peacekeepers to secure the peace under UNSC Resolution 1244.[RL30172]

The sexual interplay of marriage is so complicated these days. Posted: 20 Jul 2014 05:30 AM PDT "Man Uses Spreadsheet to List All the Times Wife Turned Down Sex; Wife Posts It on Reddit." You can see the spreadsheet at that link, but not at the original Reddit post, where the image is removed and the discussion is now locked. I haven't read the 600+ comments over there, and I'm sure there are many things one could say about this couple's problems and what might help, but I'm just going to observe that if he thinks she's sexy when she thinks she's "gross" and needs a shower, she could see things from his point of view for a few minutes and then take a shower. I know that sounds a bit efficiency-expert-y, but why prioritize your negative body image when he likes you the way you are?

How a black man could be white in the American South in the 1940s. Posted: 20 Jul 2014 05:40 AM PDT Wear a turban!

"It is said that every city, every country, has its smell." Posted: 20 Jul 2014 05:41 AM PDT "Paris, they say, smells or used to smell of acrid cabbage. Cape Town smells of sheep. There are tropical isles that smell of roses, musk, or coconut oil. Russia smells of leather. Lyon smells of coal. The Orient generally smells of musk and corpses. Brussels smells of black soap. The hotel rooms smell of black soap. The beds smell of black soap. The napkins smell of black soap. The sidewalks smell of black soap." Notes for a book about Belgium, by Charles Baudelaire, who died in 1867, without having written the book.

"'The Ideal Head': Bizarre Racial Teachings From a 1906 Textbook." Posted: 20 Jul 2014 05:41 AM PDT "A hundred years ago, American geography students learned about a world in which 'the brown people raise rice,' 'the black people … have no books,' and 'the red men are savages.'"

Are you orthorexic? Posted: 20 Jul 2014 05:42 AM PDT 10 signs.

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